Save the knees

I’m doing an uphill hike once a week now. This is in preparation for the SnowFit sessions that I’m hoping to be giving on Seymour this season. As I’m not working on the mountain this year and hence not getting to hike every day, I need to get some training in. So I hike hard from Deep Cove up Seymour. It’s a good session; hits the legs and the cardio system, but it’s easy on the knees. I did one yesterday after finishing a shift at the beach and really enjoyed it. The trail up Seymour once you get off the Baden Powell just climbs steeply all the way so you can really put it in.

I’ve been changing my runs around just lately, trying to squeeze as much as I can out of them. When I run to Quarry Rock I run each uphill twice; so get to the top, turn round, run down, run back up, then carry on. I did it on Wednesday morning and there was just me and an old guy on the whole trail. I felt guilty for spoiling his quiet early morning walk as I’d pass him, then run back past him, then pass him again, and so on. He must have thought I was a total nutcase.

I’m in the shop on my own all day today. I’ll take my tunes and some decent coffee……

Customer service? Nailed it!

Since I started at the shop I’ve found myself moving up in the world; well the Deep Cove World anyway. The Deep Cove Merchants Association organised a seminar on Tuesday night and I was on the list. It was all about customer service, with particular focus on customers from overseas with the Olympics being so close. There were five businesses represented: La La’s (fancy goods), Deep Cove Pizza, Sunflower Bakery (a bakery in Squamish), Deep Cove Outdoors, and Hunnies (I’ve deliberately spelled it that way). It was pretty interesting, although the content wasn’t too different from anything I’ve heard before. The real killer of the evening was when we were doing our personal introductions and talking about how we believed we were currently doing in terms of customer service. Obviously, having only been involved in retail for two days, my introduction was fairly short. The best one came from the owner of Hunniz. She totally believes that they deliver awesome customer service; but everybody and his dog actually knows that they regularly abuse their customers. I’ll never forget my first trip into the place; I was stunned at how indifferent the lady behind the counter was. I felt guilty for disturbing her. And I’m not on my own here – most of the guys I work with down at the beach won’t go in the place anymore. I told Linda about this and she collapsed laughing. The reason I don’t want to spell the name of the place properly is because the owner apparently regularly goes on the net searching for reviews and she can’t understand it when people complain (she said “I was there…it didn’t happen that way”). She doesn’t seem to get it that if there bad reviews there must be a problem. If she finds me bad mouthing the place I might get banned. And I’m used to the surly service now – it’s part of the attraction.

A couple of nuggets from the seminar:

• Within 10 seconds of a customer entering the store you should acknowledge them with a “Hi, how ya doing?”. Easy – I can do that.
• Within 30 seconds you should start some small talk. I’ll have to work on this one – I’m crap at small talk.
• After 3 minutes you should go over and ask if they need any help.

I’ll get a new watch then. One of my favourite pieces of customer service mantra is “you never get a second chance to make a first impression”. Bang on.

Are you being served?

(Deep Cove Outdoors – I’m 2nd from the right)

First full day at the shop today and it went ok. I spent most of the day getting winter stuff on display – snowshoes, gloves, toques. I got stuck into the waxing area and checked out the different types of wax for x-country skis. It’s mental; you can pay $300 for a tiny block of wax. I’d want a guaranteed top five place for that.

Saturday

Linda and me went shopping this morning; just over to Park Royal for a few bits. Park Royal is a big shopping complex on the North/West Van border; more West than North really. There’s a store there called Wholefoods which I’ve just discovered is also in the UK (dahn in Landan) and is the BEST food store in the whole wide world. I think you need an arts degree just to put the fruit and veg on display. Everything looks stunning, and it all tastes how it looks. Anyway we just went in for a coffee as it’s all West Van prices so we can only afford to get a coffee and a pastry. But their coffee is the best on the North Shore; beats the crap out of anything I’ve tasted so far. So we had a coffee, shopped and then went back for another. It’s a beautiful day so we sat outside for the second one. Even though it’s in a shopping complex it’s still a great place to sit and have a coffee as they’ve created a little square outside with funky benches. There’s a wicked view of the North Shore mountains from the square too. So we sat out in the sun drinking the best coffee (so far) in North America, people-watching and setting the world straight. A top way of spending the morning.

I’d planned to take Joe for his first gym session this morning. I sorted him out with some shorts and shoes, got him a notebook for writing his routine down, and set off for the gym. Just to find out that he has to be 15 to go into the weights room where the rowing machines are. Even if he comes in only with me and doesn’t use any weights. Damn it. I’m rethinking this one. It seemed like the perfect plan – there has to be something I can do that’s along the same lines.

Come on…dig in!!!

I love those words – they’ve been a part of all my best training sessions. I used them a lot yesterday in the final session of the day. Me and Nick had a swimming team for 2 hours and they’d specifically asked for a hard paddle. That’s why I was so excited about yesterday. It’s not often that we get a bunch that really want to go for it. I was all set to go out on a surf ski as I had visions of some 17-year-old superstars turning up. When they turned up I swapped the surf ski for a fast kayak instead – these kids were all around 15 and were all smiles and chatty. I gave them the intro to the boats and then gave them a quick talk about paddling technique – particularly using the core muscles. I showed them our destination – Raccoon Island – which looks way off in the distance (and it is) but didn’t get much of a reaction. We got them into the boats and set off at a reasonable pace as a warm up. Once we were out of  The Cove I stepped it up a bit and we headed across the Arm to Jug Island. That’s where things went wrong. I had 2 or 3 boats with me who were the strong and committed kids; the rest were cruising and chatting. I could hear Nick at the back trying to get them to put some effort in but he was having a hard time, and because we had to keep waiting the kids at the front weren’t getting a consistent paddle.

Once everybody finally got to Jug we swapped a couple of kids around; boats that had 2 strong paddlers we took one out and put them with a not-as-strong paddler to even things out. As we set off towards Raccoon I got them into single file and told them the plan. The lead boat was the pace setter. There should never be more than half a boat length between any two boats. At any time I’ll shout “SPLIT LEFT” or “SPLIT RIGHT” and the lead boat has to peel off in that direction as hard as they can, paddle to the back of the line then join back on. It’s just a version of the chain gang that I used when cycling and running. The beauty of using it on these guys was that it stopped all the chat and made them concentrate on keeping the pace going. And it worked – we absolutely motored over to Raccoon. We had a brief rest at Raccoon then turned the boats to face the Cove. I changed the order around and we chainganged it all the way back. That’s a long way to paddle at that intensity but these guys absolutely nailed it – with a bit of encouragement! They even had enough energy left for a race at the end. It was a great session, wish I could have more like that.

Winter (part 1)

Almost got the first bit of winter employment sorted. I’ve been offered three days a week at Deep Cove Outdoors which is the retail arm of the kayak shop. The focus is on winter sports, particularly cross-country skiing and snowshoeing. So I’m stuck inside but working within the outdoors industry. The pay is as crap as ever, but beggars can’t be choosers. It also means I’ll be working weekends (which Linda is not happy about). It sounds like it’s just negative after negative, but I’m actually quite excited about it. I’ll be working with people who are genuinely passionate about the sport, and talking to customers who want to get out and enjoy the snow. I’m reading every website I can find about xc skiing at the moment – like every sport there’s different types of equipment and terminology to learn about.

I have to try and find another couple of days work from somewhere else now…..

(Don’t) put a sock in it

I’ve been experimenting with running without socks just lately. I don’t like the sketchy way my feet slide around inside my socks on the trails. Even tightening my shoes doesn’t work, and I can’t find any non-slip socks. So I’m running sockless. I’m up to an hour and a half on the runs now and the feet are holding up ok with no blisters. It’s certainly better; I feel more connected to the shoes and the trail, and so far no sketchy slipping. Just got to work the mileage up. I may have to wear socks when I start snowshoe running though….

I went for a training paddle on a surf ski yesterday. Things looked brilliant; blue sky, flat water…..but it turned out crap. I was using a crappy paddle as the wing blade demo paddle had disappeared from the shop. I don’t know if it was that or I was just having a bad day, but everything felt rubbish. I didn’t feel like I was getting the boat moving, my body rotation felt crap, my paddle stroke was noisy and splashy….just not a good ride. It’s too easy to get bogged down with the technicalities of paddle stroke and body position when really you should just get out and ride it hard. I’m giving the wing blade paddles a rest for a while; they’re more trouble than they’re worth at the moment. Back to basics time.

I’m reading a book at the moment called Born to Run and it’s flippin brilliant. It shows just how little I know about trail running and ultras and the gods of the sport. It also shows how the top runners do it because they love running. They don’t do track sessions or hill sessions or any other scheduled routines. They just go out and run. Lovin’ it. This book is strongly recommended to anybody even mildly interested in jogging by the way. There are some awesome characters in it.

I’m a diplomat I am

Linda’s been on Joe’s case about getting exercise. That’s nothing new really but this time she’s really determined. So much so that she actually enrolled him in the cross country club. I almost choked when she told me. Joe doing cross country? I don’t think so. She told him while we were out on Sunday on a trip over to Bowen island. The look of horror on his face ran deep and wide. Of course I had to be involved; the plan was for me to take him out for some runs in between cross country sessions. Yeah right. This plan had failure and misery written in big, bold letters all over it. Running is one of things that you have to want to do. Especially in the winter. So my new moderate plan is that we’ll enroll him in the local rec centre and he’ll come with me three times a week and do 30 minutes on the rowing machine. He can stick his iPod on and just row. He’s at that age right now where he’s getting a bit self conscious so I reckon once he feels his muscles starting to tighten up he’ll be hooked. I’ll let him start nice and easy for a week and then I’ll make sure he gets a workout. I think it’s a better plan with a greater chance of success; we’ll see.

I’m sending my resume out all over the place at the moment. The work is drying up fast at the kayak shop and I’m not getting any bites. Things are looking very tight.

Blue moon

It’s a stunning Fall day today – blue skies with a definite cool feel (6°C at the moment, high of 15). I’m taking some friends of a friend out for a paddle this morning; part lesson, part tour depending on how much they know. Should be a good trip; I just looked out from the balcony and the water’s only rippling.

It’s the last Full Moon paddle of the season for me tonight. If the weather forecast holds true then it should be spectacular. The actual full moon is tomorrow night but I’m not working that  one. The times have been adjusted so instead of 20:00 – 23:00 it’s 19:00 – 22:00 which makes it a bit easier. I love these paddles – paddling at night is very cool.

We didn’t get to see the Toy Story double bill last night due to Joe arsing around wanting to go with all his buddies and then changing plans at the last minute. It’s on for 2 weeks so we’ll catch it next week.

I’m signed up for a 20K run around the Seymour trails on October 17 and then another one in November. They’ll be as grim as usual but it keeps me out there training and staying fit. And I have to keep the tempo up now – working towards the Yeti in January.

Live from the North Shore

Joe was walking to school yesterday morning on his usual route through some trees when a bear walked across the track right in front of him. That’s the trouble with listening to your iPod – it doesn’t have a bear alert on it.